Disc formatting and file system use… advice required for a Linux beginner.

[geelock]

Firstly many thanks in advance for any advice given and apologies for the length of post.

After many years (20+) of using MS Windows as my OS of choice due to it’s simplistic set-up, organisation and management basically “Plug & Play”… I’ve now decided to migrate all my systems to Linux… namely Fedora 41 KDE Plasma, I've played around in the past with various distros such as Mint, Ubuntu & Fedora but due to their steep learning curve and software needs/favourites… reverted back to Windows,

My systems are as follows:

Desktop:
Lenovo V530 Workstation
Intel Core i5-8400 @ 2.8 Ghz
32 GB DDR4-SDRAM
250 GB SSD- primary drive: C:
4TB HHD- secondary drive: D: & E:

Laptop:
Lenovo Ideapad 5i Pro
Intel Core i5-1135G7 @ 2.4 GHz
8 GB DDR4 RAM – on-board
512 GB M.2 NVMe SSD – Samsung MZALQ512HBLU-00BL2

HTPC:
NiPoGi GK3PLUS
Intel N95 @1.7 GHz
8GB DDR4 - on-board
250 GB M.2 SATA SSD: C:
2TB HHD – Seagate BarraCuda: D: & E:

All on a home network along with a Synolgy 218 Play NAS

Under Windows set- up on both systems:

C: 100 MB EFI - System Partition
238.72 MB – NTFS – Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Basic Data Partition (Windows)
656 MB – Recovery Partition

D: Full disc for Data… user files (Documents, Downloads, Music, Pictures & Videos etc)

I would like to set up a similar system on the disc’s for my Fedora install

The laptop is easy… just let the Fedora Live Disk format & set-up the SSD as a simple install, as for the Desktop & HTPC…

Primary drive (250 SSD):
/boot/efi
/boot
/- Fedora instalation

Secondary drive (2 & 4 TB HHD):
/home- user files (Documents, Downloads, Music,Videos etc)

All which can be done using by “Something Else” for disc choice and partitioning during installation… but I’ve noticed on several sites & posts recommending placing /tmp &/var on to the HHD in a two disc set-up… this can also be done during install using mount points…

My dilemma is… what size partitions should be assigned to both…

Also as under Fedora 41 the “swap file” is assigned to an 8 GB ram drive… as I have 32 GB of DDR4 Ram for the Desktop… is it feasible and would it be good practice to also assign /tmp to a ram drive of maybe 10 GB ?

I have done a search of the web… plenty of info on dual-boot or placing the Root / dir and Swap area on one partition and the Home /home dir on a second example...

Installing Ubuntu with Two Hard Drives dated 2020, good for the simple set-up...

Best way to use and install Linux (Ubuntu) using two hard drives dated 2018, good for the more complex set-up…

How would I install Ubuntu with two hard drives dated 2021, also good, and

Installing Ubuntu on Samsung 5 (SSD+HDD) dated 2012, good but complex and maybe dated

but no suggestions of sizing for a /var partition.

As for placing the /tmp and other “volatile file” directories on to a ram drive…

How to Easily Create RAM Disk on Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, CentOS dated 2024, provides a good read and method of how to auto-mount on system boot.

My aim is to reduce the amount of read writes to the SSD and give all that work to the larger but slower HHD.

 

[gvisoc]

Fellow Fedora KDE user here.

Aside from /boot and /boot/efi, that always go aside and you have already mentioned:

If you're using Fedora, as the filesystem is formatted in BTRFS you won't have to worry too much about the partitions. This is because BTRFS defines dynamic mount points on the same volume. Let's say, for example, that you have a BTRFS volume of 500GB named "@" that uses all the disk, and where the mount point is "/". You can define a subvolume named "@home" with mountpoint "/home" without having to create separate partitions. They logically act as separate partitions, but they are virtual mappings on the same volume. BTRFS mysteries, not an expert on the underlying implications.

Also, Fedora defines the swap in the RAM if you have enough of it, for compatibility with some legacy processes.

The only thing you need to worry about is a situation where you may be reinstalling the system every so often, and you don't want to be restoring /home from a backup, for which having separate volumes defined on disk may make more sense. And maybe you don't even need it because that thingie that Fedora does with BTRFS may already do the trick. As I am a backup person and I reinstall my systems very rarely, I am not entirely sure what would go better in that sense.

In modern, desktop systems, that division is probably what makes most sense over everything else. Defining separate partitions or volumes for /etc, /var, etc., is relevant in server scenarios where the files on each of them have different requirements related to backup and retention policies, so I would skip that for now.

If you divide / and /home in separate partitions, in my experience 80 GB is more than enough for the system and applications in most cases(*), and the rest of the disk should be for /home --provided that you set up your media libraries and other bulky stuff like Steam games on your user's home.

In general, for systems other than Fedora, you should define a swap device, it can be a partition, a file or a RAM filesystem. Check your distribution's recommendation. However, in the past the recommendation was to allocate twice the RAM. Unless you had something like 4 GB, I think that recommendation is oversized and outdated.

(*) Media creation tools can install assets under /usr, that would be the most usual exception

 

[geelock]

​

Hi gvisoc.. and thanks for your detailed response, seems like i need to get to know more about the BTRFS file system... I only just understood the Fat & NFTC Windows set up, but I should get to know what I'm using now.
Hopefully I can reduce considerably the amount of read/writes to the SSD's along with de-fragmentation on both SSD's & HHD's.
I think that placing the /tmp dir onto ram drive that run's at boot may help in that.

 

[APTI]

​

Hi gvisoc.. and thanks for your detailed response, seems like i need to get to know more about the BTRFS file system... I only just understood the Fat & NFTC Windows set up, but I should get to know what I'm using now.
Hopefully I can reduce considerably the amount of read/writes to the SSD's along with de-fragmentation on both SSD's & HHD's.
I think that placing the /tmp dir onto ram drive that run's at boot may help in that.

linux does not do defrag on a drive. in fact most of the systems take advantage of the fragmentation to speed up reads and writes on old mechanical drives. MS stupidly does a defrag putting the files in sequential strips which actually makes reads slower. I won't go into the mechanics but mechanical drives in linux perform faster due to this behavior.

however solid state storage does not need defrag even in windoze so just forget about defrag altogether.

 

[bob466]

If I was a new Linux beginner and did the research you did I would run back to windoze as fast as I could because it's just too hard...but wait it isn't.

The learning curve isn't a big deal...just forget everything windoze because Linux isn't windoze. Linux doesn't create fragmented files...so there's no need to defrag. You must never defrag an SSD as this will shorten it's life...you can extend the life of an SSD using Trim but that's another story.

Linux Mint Cinnamon is easy to install and use...you just need to learn how.

The easy way...download the ISO and burn it to a Flash Drive and boot to it and click install. Select...Erase Disk and Install Linux Mint...the Mint installer will install the Distro to the whole Drive...simple.

If you have any storage Drives...disconnect them before installing the ISO.

As you can see...everything is on the same 500GB SSD...no need to create partitions...I've been doing it this way for nearly 10 years and never had any problems...hope this helps.

 

[geelock]

Hi and thanks APTI & bob466, I took a small look at both your posts yesterday while on my dinner break at work (10:00 uk time due to shifts), gvisoc's post had content that set me thinking especially the the line...

This is because BTRFS defines dynamic mount points on the same volume.This is because BTRFS defines dynamic mount points on the same volume.

"Dynamic" - stretchable... this related as I in the past have used dynamic rope for climbing for the stretch & static - non stretch for abseiling with groups.... but yesterdays post I'd barely started reading, when I realized/remembered that many years ago whilst reading up on Android for my mobile (cell) I had come across an article that stated that...
"as Android was Linux based it didn't fragment the file system"... so I'm sorted... placing the /var dir and /home dir onto the same disc on the same partition will cause no problems at all...

So the modified plan of action... fresh install of Fedora to the formatted SSD placing the /home dir onto the HHD where I can later, through the installed OS place the /var dir.

I do realize that bob466 says to disconnect any storage drives, but the drive's empty and if I do it this way I can take notes from the fstab file to enable me to do this from within the OS in the future by editing the said file.

Also after installation I'll create a 10GB ram disc that will mount on boot, where I can place the /tmp dir which should "self clean" every shutdown/ re-boot.
A little more research and I should up and running by Sunday....

I think this has now been solved and can be marked as such... Thanks to all.